What an awkward title for your first post
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Free registration at the forum removes this block.SAAS Execution, Dane Maxwell style
- Thread starter MartinH
- Start date
- EXECUTION SAAS / APPS
A detailed account of a Fastlane process...
Guys - No disrespect but REALLY?
If they have horrible websites, there is demand. It's not what your offering they are not responding to but the way you must be presenting it.
If you were on the other end of the line, busy in your day-to-day, how would you respond? What have you given them of value? Answer: Who you are, what you do, what your doing, hoping to drag information out of them in hope you can monetize it.
Business owners/bosses get lots of calls like that everyday, which is why the gatekeeper is there to block these kind of calls. It's not that there is not a market for what you are offering, it's just you have not communicated well as to what you can do for the prospect. It is never about you, it's all about the customer. It's not about the problem but about what they will experience once the problem is solved.
While I know both of you have good intentions, your responses are all about what you can do for them and not about the customer. First off, never pitch the gatekeeper. Secondly, craft a script that clearly communicates what you are trying to accomplish. EX: Solve a problem - Ok, let's be clear as to what that means. A problem is just something that is preventing them from experiencing something (getting off work on time, more time to do something else, doing something they hate doing.....)
Without going into a marketing course here, search how to write copy, selling and marketing threads. Lots of discussions you will view as gold. Both of you have legit ideas but when it isn't working, adjust what you are doing and how you are doing it. Clearly, both of you are good on the technical side, but need to spend time on understand what makes people buy.
If they have horrible websites, there is demand. It's not what your offering they are not responding to but the way you must be presenting it.
If you were on the other end of the line, busy in your day-to-day, how would you respond? What have you given them of value? Answer: Who you are, what you do, what your doing, hoping to drag information out of them in hope you can monetize it.
Business owners/bosses get lots of calls like that everyday, which is why the gatekeeper is there to block these kind of calls. It's not that there is not a market for what you are offering, it's just you have not communicated well as to what you can do for the prospect. It is never about you, it's all about the customer. It's not about the problem but about what they will experience once the problem is solved.
While I know both of you have good intentions, your responses are all about what you can do for them and not about the customer. First off, never pitch the gatekeeper. Secondly, craft a script that clearly communicates what you are trying to accomplish. EX: Solve a problem - Ok, let's be clear as to what that means. A problem is just something that is preventing them from experiencing something (getting off work on time, more time to do something else, doing something they hate doing.....)
Without going into a marketing course here, search how to write copy, selling and marketing threads. Lots of discussions you will view as gold. Both of you have legit ideas but when it isn't working, adjust what you are doing and how you are doing it. Clearly, both of you are good on the technical side, but need to spend time on understand what makes people buy.
- Thread starter
- #43
Day 9:
Today I had my first hour long Idea Extraction calls and it was really fun!
I interviewed four CEOs and this time (roughly following the SPIN model) I really got to the level 4 problem(s).
Finding problems wasn't hard but getting several levels deep (i.e. breaking the problem down into smaller, less complex problems) was all about the right "Implication Questions": I simply asked about all possible ways that this problem effects the company and kept asking until I fully understood the problem's magnitude. As a result I could define several sub-problems of the company's most painful problem and then simply pick the sub-problem that, according to the CEO, was the most expensive/time-consuming one.
I found out there's one specific problem that all of these companies have in common and one CEO even
assumed that this problem exists in almost all of the major property cleaning companies - so this might be my starting point.
I asked if there was an existing (software) solution and 3 out of 4 CEOs didn't know, whereas one of them said "Yes there is an application that tries to solve this problem but it's too complex and too expensive for us."
So I will try to validate this problem in my calls tomorrow and see if this is a problem worth solving.
Those calls today encouraged me immensely and gave me even more confidence to pursue this SaaS business.
I think writing an email and asking for / waiting for "permission" to call is not really necessary. My most successful call today started out really shitty: The CEO couldn't even remember my email but he said "Alright, you got 5 minutes, ask your questions if you must..." but as soon as I asked questions and showed him I was actually interested in his problems he started talking and it turned out to be a really fun and mutually beneficial conversation.
Today I had my first hour long Idea Extraction calls and it was really fun!
I interviewed four CEOs and this time (roughly following the SPIN model) I really got to the level 4 problem(s).
Finding problems wasn't hard but getting several levels deep (i.e. breaking the problem down into smaller, less complex problems) was all about the right "Implication Questions": I simply asked about all possible ways that this problem effects the company and kept asking until I fully understood the problem's magnitude. As a result I could define several sub-problems of the company's most painful problem and then simply pick the sub-problem that, according to the CEO, was the most expensive/time-consuming one.
I found out there's one specific problem that all of these companies have in common and one CEO even
assumed that this problem exists in almost all of the major property cleaning companies - so this might be my starting point.
I asked if there was an existing (software) solution and 3 out of 4 CEOs didn't know, whereas one of them said "Yes there is an application that tries to solve this problem but it's too complex and too expensive for us."
So I will try to validate this problem in my calls tomorrow and see if this is a problem worth solving.
Those calls today encouraged me immensely and gave me even more confidence to pursue this SaaS business.
I think writing an email and asking for / waiting for "permission" to call is not really necessary. My most successful call today started out really shitty: The CEO couldn't even remember my email but he said "Alright, you got 5 minutes, ask your questions if you must..." but as soon as I asked questions and showed him I was actually interested in his problems he started talking and it turned out to be a really fun and mutually beneficial conversation.
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Last edited:
- Thread starter
- #102
Day 30:
Today was the most awesome day in months. I imagined it must be cool to talk with CEOs in person but reality totally exceeded my expectations. They were really friendly and open and not once did they ask about my experience or education. They simply welcomed the fact that I'm a software entrepreneur willing to help them solve painful problems.
With one CEO I talked for three hours and eventually defined his problem so accurately and described an awesome possible solution that we agreed I should do this right away. It's a relatively small problem, one that only small companies might have (so definitely not really scalable), but it would be a great start into my career as a software entrepreneur/developer. I'll probably charge 1.5k € for this solution and estimated this will take me only a few days to develop with Filemaker Pro Advanced. I'm really excited about this, maybe I can sell this solution to several small businesses that are still using excel for writing invoices I felt so good after this conversation. The guy really spilled the beans and I got a ton of valuable information out of that conversation. I really like that guy and I'd love to help him overcome this problem.
I now feel much more comfortable in my role as a problem solver and I realized something:
I started the day coding a project for my mentor in RoR and nothing worked. I spent the first few hours of that morning trying to fix bugs. I did this until it was time to leave to drive to my first meeting and I was really frustrated. I hated staring at my laptop screen and got sick and tired of looking at the command line
Then I started talking with those CEOs and all my programming problems seemed so small, so unimportant in comparison to those real world problems. I realized I don't care so much about the technical details, I only care about solving problems. Now I'm not a pro programmer but I got a glimpse at many different languages and frameworks. I know my way around with MeteorJS, I tried AngularJS, am currently working on Ruby on Rails, I created some small apps with Filemaker. Now I probably suck too much to create valuable enterprise software in any programming language but I know the differences between languages and frameworks, I know what tools to use for which job and I know the lingo.
Having said that, as much as I enjoy learning to code it is not how I eventually want to spend my time.
Talking with clients and establishing relationships is way more fun (and also much more productive).
So I'll do this small first job myself but when it comes to bigger solutions I will definitely hire programmers.
The other meeting I had today was even more awesome than the first one. We started talking about the software they're currently using and then eventually figured out that the problems they had with that software were not really painful or time-consuming, just annoying, and apart from that small problem they didn't have any trouble (because they have awesome employees). It's a huge company with close to 1k employees. But as the conversation went on I told the CEO that my goal was actually to solve small and ideally unsolved problems in his industry and that's when he told me that he had been secretly working on a really painful problem in his industry for about 10 years now. He had invested a fortune in software development and now has a working product.
The problem is he can't sell it: doesn't have time, doesn't have the expertise in sales and the software is outdated anyway.
So he said he'd be very interested in a partnership with me. He'd provide the concept and experience in his industry, I should concentrate on developing an awesome and modern product and then sell it to as many customers as possible.
I won't tell you what his idea is but it is genius.
Seriously awesome.
He totally blew my mind.
There is a product out there that is already in use (people are paying for it) but it's inferior and sucks really hard, his idea would be much more elegant.
I'm still just taking this in, the guy is old enough to be my father and spent a fortune on development already and he'd be willing to partner with me.
:embarrased:
I will spend the next week validating this problem to see if it is a top problem and if it will be easy to sell this concept - because only then would I be willing to invest my time (and money).
There was so much valuable information in those 5 hours I spent with those CEOs
I don't know where this will lead me but it's definitely the right direction.
Good things happen when you start taking action...
Today was the most awesome day in months. I imagined it must be cool to talk with CEOs in person but reality totally exceeded my expectations. They were really friendly and open and not once did they ask about my experience or education. They simply welcomed the fact that I'm a software entrepreneur willing to help them solve painful problems.
With one CEO I talked for three hours and eventually defined his problem so accurately and described an awesome possible solution that we agreed I should do this right away. It's a relatively small problem, one that only small companies might have (so definitely not really scalable), but it would be a great start into my career as a software entrepreneur/developer. I'll probably charge 1.5k € for this solution and estimated this will take me only a few days to develop with Filemaker Pro Advanced. I'm really excited about this, maybe I can sell this solution to several small businesses that are still using excel for writing invoices
I felt so good after this conversation. The guy really spilled the beans and I got a ton of valuable information out of that conversation. I really like that guy and I'd love to help him overcome this problem.I now feel much more comfortable in my role as a problem solver and I realized something:
I started the day coding a project for my mentor in RoR and nothing worked. I spent the first few hours of that morning trying to fix bugs. I did this until it was time to leave to drive to my first meeting and I was really frustrated. I hated staring at my laptop screen and got sick and tired of looking at the command line
Then I started talking with those CEOs and all my programming problems seemed so small, so unimportant in comparison to those real world problems. I realized I don't care so much about the technical details, I only care about solving problems. Now I'm not a pro programmer but I got a glimpse at many different languages and frameworks. I know my way around with MeteorJS, I tried AngularJS, am currently working on Ruby on Rails, I created some small apps with Filemaker. Now I probably suck too much to create valuable enterprise software in any programming language but I know the differences between languages and frameworks, I know what tools to use for which job and I know the lingo.
Having said that, as much as I enjoy learning to code it is not how I eventually want to spend my time.
Talking with clients and establishing relationships is way more fun (and also much more productive).
So I'll do this small first job myself but when it comes to bigger solutions I will definitely hire programmers.
The other meeting I had today was even more awesome than the first one. We started talking about the software they're currently using and then eventually figured out that the problems they had with that software were not really painful or time-consuming, just annoying, and apart from that small problem they didn't have any trouble (because they have awesome employees). It's a huge company with close to 1k employees. But as the conversation went on I told the CEO that my goal was actually to solve small and ideally unsolved problems in his industry and that's when he told me that he had been secretly working on a really painful problem in his industry for about 10 years now. He had invested a fortune in software development and now has a working product.
The problem is he can't sell it: doesn't have time, doesn't have the expertise in sales and the software is outdated anyway.
So he said he'd be very interested in a partnership with me. He'd provide the concept and experience in his industry, I should concentrate on developing an awesome and modern product and then sell it to as many customers as possible.
I won't tell you what his idea is but it is genius.
Seriously awesome.
He totally blew my mind.
There is a product out there that is already in use (people are paying for it) but it's inferior and sucks really hard, his idea would be much more elegant.
I'm still just taking this in, the guy is old enough to be my father and spent a fortune on development already and he'd be willing to partner with me.
:embarrased:I will spend the next week validating this problem to see if it is a top problem and if it will be easy to sell this concept - because only then would I be willing to invest my time (and money).
There was so much valuable information in those 5 hours I spent with those CEOs
I don't know where this will lead me but it's definitely the right direction.Good things happen when you start taking action...
The best 4 hour work week I ever had was the week I spent 4 hours reading the Millionaire Fastlane . I used to spend so much mental energy on MY needs/wants.... passive income, location independence, x$ per month, etc. One of the most powerful concepts in TMF is when MJ states (my paraphrase) that we must get over our own selfishness and learn to address the selfishness of others.
I believe this goes beyond "find the pain" to becoming someone who sees the world as a "producer". Genuinely seeking create REAL value in the most effective way and putting my selfish desires aside to become incredibly effective in having the greatest impact on others. I also appreciate that MJ has not asked me to sign up for any upsell costing costing in the thousands of dollars.
Oh not to mention the first commandment ;-)
I believe this goes beyond "find the pain" to becoming someone who sees the world as a "producer". Genuinely seeking create REAL value in the most effective way and putting my selfish desires aside to become incredibly effective in having the greatest impact on others. I also appreciate that MJ has not asked me to sign up for any upsell costing costing in the thousands of dollars.
Oh not to mention the first commandment ;-)
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He's your god? Um.... you can learn from him. You can enroll in his course.
Catchy headline. You'd never see me making a similar claim about any guru, or any man.
Catchy headline. You'd never see me making a similar claim about any guru, or any man.
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- Thread starter
- #11
Day 1:
My first objective was to find a suitable industry and then start cold-calling.
My criteria for choosing an industry are:
-Profit driven businesses
>5.000 businesses in that market
-Reachable by phone
-->Can get manager on the phone
-Already use software products
-Lucrative industry with >100k revenue
For starters I decided to try it in the cleaning industry for corporate buildings.
I live in a major metropolitan region in Germany so there are lots of skyscrapers and offices to be cleaned.
When I searched for "cleaning companies (corporate buildings)" on yellow pages, I found more than 180 companies in my city alone. (There are at least 15 cities with a larger population than my city in Germany)
Fair enough - let's get started.
Last sunday night I already sent 30 emails to companies nearby. This is the template I used for all emails:
"Hi (NAME),
My name is (MY NAME) and I am a software developer from (MY CITY). We are currently doing research on (INDUSTRY)
in order to create custom software that solves problems that cannot be solved by standard CRM or accounting applications.
What are the biggest problems you face on a day-to-day basis?
This is not spam and I am not going to try and sell you anything, I would just like to learn about the pain points you experience in your profession.
I would love to hear back from you, even if it is only one sentence!
Kind Regards,
(MY NAME)"
Sure, those emails will show up on top of their inbox on monday morning but it will take days until I "may" call them:
(I write them an email, they answer in one sentence, I reply asking when we could schedule a phone call, they reply, I call)
BTW
I was really happy that so many of you awesome people commented on my first post. THANK YOU FOR THAT.
So in order to take action NOW I didn't wait for those companies to reply, I simply startet cold-calling.
It's Monday morning, 10.30 am, and I already called 25 companies. My goal was to get at least get one manager on the phone and interview him long enough to find a few problems.
Here's what happened:
The first few companies I called directly hung up on me after I introduced myself with the following words:
"Good morning, my name is {name} and I'm a software entrepreneur from {city}. We are conducting a survey in {their industry}
to get to know you problems and hopefully create a software product that will solve those problems."
Some of the replies where:
"We don't buy anything!" *click* (I didn't try to sell anything!)
"We're not interested" (She didn't even let me finish my sentence)
"We don't discuss that on the phone but you can email us" *click* (I already did)
I mostly talked to secretaries and when I asked to speak to the manager they often replied with:
"He's not at work today" (living the good life, huh?)
"He's not in his office"
"You can't" *click*
"He only responds to email" Me:"Can I have his email address, then?" -"No, just send an email to info@weneverreply.com"
So I figured the word that scared those secretaries away most was "survey" (in german it sounds even scarier, lol) because they associate this to "sleazy salesperson" and the natural reaction is to hang up.
So this is the script I used from there on:
"Good morning, my name is {name} and I'm a software developer from {city}. We are currently working on software especially designed
for {your industry} and in order to provide the best user experience we are interviewing all companies in {my state}, in order to get to
know the most painful problems, that you encounter on a day-to-day basis. Can I talk to the manager please?"
The next calls went a lot smoother and the secretaries were much friendlier and chatted longer. But the end result remained the same:
They don't need software
The boss isn't there anyway
They don't want right now
They don't use "software" that much anyway
They are perfectly happy with the software they have
Their boss doesn't allow them to talk about software at all - I should do everything via email.
etc.
Four times I actually got the manager on the phone. *Success*
The first three politely declined and said they were not interested in any software right now and I shouldn't call again.
The last one was pretty friendly and scheduled an interview for tomorrow morning. (He also said that monday is their busiest day that's why he can't talk right now)
So bottom line after 25 calls: One manager at least agreed to talk to me tomorrow. The other secretaries didn't even let me talk to the manager. I will see how they will respond to my emails but I suppose it won't change much.
Maybe this is an industry where they generally don't use a lot of software, if at all.
Maybe it's one of those industries where the secretaries work on Windows XP and schedule appointments in MS Excel (but are perfectly happy with this).
Plus many companies I called seriously showed no interest AT ALL in any software.
Germany is a bit different than the US, small businesses generally tend to not use a lot of software even if it could save them a lot of time
because the people using it (secretaries, part-time employees, etc.) are old school and prefer to "never change a running system". A long time ago I did several internships and basically worked as a secretary and saw this first hand: Small German companies are really against "paperless" office communication. Everything needs to be printed out like it's 1995.
I will definitely wait for them to reply my emails, then call some more companies on a not-so-busy Tuesday and see if I can get a manager to open up and talk freely about his problems.
If I can't get at least a few interviews done, I'll stop bothering those businesses and pick an industry where a manager might say something like "Oh you're doing special software to help my business succeed? Just a few questions? Sure -fire away, son!"
So the goal for tomorrow is to:
Get a manager on the phone for 30 min. and find problems to solve
Other options would be to pick a completely different industry or do face-to-face interviews; I got a few friends that are managers and I could simply ask them about problems. I guess that's what Dane did with his first company: Ask his uncle about problems and solve those problems.
I got friends/relatives in leading positions in a:
-law firm
-wholesale store
-energy company
-private high-school
-construction company
For sure the biggest problem today was to get from "Hey, you don't know me but I want to help you succeed, answer a few of my questions, please!" to actually talking to a manager for a longer period of time. I guess that's the hardest part of any cold call, the "threshold".
If I could just manage to overcome this problem I'm sure ideas would start flowing. But for now I'll just improve my technique, learn from my mistakes and do a better job tomorrow.
Any feedback / suggestions where to go next / criticism ?
My first objective was to find a suitable industry and then start cold-calling.
My criteria for choosing an industry are:
-Profit driven businesses
>5.000 businesses in that market
-Reachable by phone
-->Can get manager on the phone
-Already use software products
-Lucrative industry with >100k revenue
For starters I decided to try it in the cleaning industry for corporate buildings.
I live in a major metropolitan region in Germany so there are lots of skyscrapers and offices to be cleaned.
When I searched for "cleaning companies (corporate buildings)" on yellow pages, I found more than 180 companies in my city alone. (There are at least 15 cities with a larger population than my city in Germany)
Fair enough - let's get started.
Last sunday night I already sent 30 emails to companies nearby. This is the template I used for all emails:
"Hi (NAME),
My name is (MY NAME) and I am a software developer from (MY CITY). We are currently doing research on (INDUSTRY)
in order to create custom software that solves problems that cannot be solved by standard CRM or accounting applications.
What are the biggest problems you face on a day-to-day basis?
This is not spam and I am not going to try and sell you anything, I would just like to learn about the pain points you experience in your profession.
I would love to hear back from you, even if it is only one sentence!
Kind Regards,
(MY NAME)"
Sure, those emails will show up on top of their inbox on monday morning but it will take days until I "may" call them:
(I write them an email, they answer in one sentence, I reply asking when we could schedule a phone call, they reply, I call)
BTW
I was really happy that so many of you awesome people commented on my first post. THANK YOU FOR THAT.
So in order to take action NOW I didn't wait for those companies to reply, I simply startet cold-calling.
It's Monday morning, 10.30 am, and I already called 25 companies. My goal was to get at least get one manager on the phone and interview him long enough to find a few problems.
Here's what happened:
The first few companies I called directly hung up on me after I introduced myself with the following words:
"Good morning, my name is {name} and I'm a software entrepreneur from {city}. We are conducting a survey in {their industry}
to get to know you problems and hopefully create a software product that will solve those problems."
Some of the replies where:
"We don't buy anything!" *click* (I didn't try to sell anything!)
"We're not interested" (She didn't even let me finish my sentence)
"We don't discuss that on the phone but you can email us" *click* (I already did)
I mostly talked to secretaries and when I asked to speak to the manager they often replied with:
"He's not at work today" (living the good life, huh?)
"He's not in his office"
"You can't" *click*
"He only responds to email" Me:"Can I have his email address, then?" -"No, just send an email to info@weneverreply.com"
So I figured the word that scared those secretaries away most was "survey" (in german it sounds even scarier, lol) because they associate this to "sleazy salesperson" and the natural reaction is to hang up.
So this is the script I used from there on:
"Good morning, my name is {name} and I'm a software developer from {city}. We are currently working on software especially designed
for {your industry} and in order to provide the best user experience we are interviewing all companies in {my state}, in order to get to
know the most painful problems, that you encounter on a day-to-day basis. Can I talk to the manager please?"
The next calls went a lot smoother and the secretaries were much friendlier and chatted longer. But the end result remained the same:
They don't need software
The boss isn't there anyway
They don't want right now
They don't use "software" that much anyway
They are perfectly happy with the software they have
Their boss doesn't allow them to talk about software at all - I should do everything via email.
etc.
Four times I actually got the manager on the phone. *Success*
The first three politely declined and said they were not interested in any software right now and I shouldn't call again.
The last one was pretty friendly and scheduled an interview for tomorrow morning. (He also said that monday is their busiest day that's why he can't talk right now)
So bottom line after 25 calls: One manager at least agreed to talk to me tomorrow. The other secretaries didn't even let me talk to the manager. I will see how they will respond to my emails but I suppose it won't change much.
Maybe this is an industry where they generally don't use a lot of software, if at all.
Maybe it's one of those industries where the secretaries work on Windows XP and schedule appointments in MS Excel (but are perfectly happy with this).
Plus many companies I called seriously showed no interest AT ALL in any software.
Germany is a bit different than the US, small businesses generally tend to not use a lot of software even if it could save them a lot of time
because the people using it (secretaries, part-time employees, etc.) are old school and prefer to "never change a running system". A long time ago I did several internships and basically worked as a secretary and saw this first hand: Small German companies are really against "paperless" office communication. Everything needs to be printed out like it's 1995.
I will definitely wait for them to reply my emails, then call some more companies on a not-so-busy Tuesday and see if I can get a manager to open up and talk freely about his problems.
If I can't get at least a few interviews done, I'll stop bothering those businesses and pick an industry where a manager might say something like "Oh you're doing special software to help my business succeed? Just a few questions? Sure -fire away, son!"
So the goal for tomorrow is to:
Get a manager on the phone for 30 min. and find problems to solve
Other options would be to pick a completely different industry or do face-to-face interviews; I got a few friends that are managers and I could simply ask them about problems. I guess that's what Dane did with his first company: Ask his uncle about problems and solve those problems.
I got friends/relatives in leading positions in a:
-law firm
-wholesale store
-energy company
-private high-school
-construction company
For sure the biggest problem today was to get from "Hey, you don't know me but I want to help you succeed, answer a few of my questions, please!" to actually talking to a manager for a longer period of time. I guess that's the hardest part of any cold call, the "threshold".
If I could just manage to overcome this problem I'm sure ideas would start flowing. But for now I'll just improve my technique, learn from my mistakes and do a better job tomorrow.
Any feedback / suggestions where to go next / criticism ?
- Thread starter
- #27
Day 3:
Today I started cold calling early in the morning to test my new scripts. After my cold calls on monday went completely wrong
I decided to try this new script: I introduced myself as a college student who's doing research on his thesis and then I asked the secretary if she happens to know the right person to talk to.
The secretaries then basically gave me carte blanche and replied: "Well who do you wanna speak to?" (if it was a big company) or simply "That would be our CEO, wait I'll put you through."
And I got through...
Every
Single
Time
For someone who had been failing at cold calling that was really liberating. My script contained about 5 different responses to cope with being rejected by the gatekeeper but I didn't have to use any of them.
So I ended up calling 15 businesses and most of the time I ended up talking with the CEO. Many times the CEO was really in a hurry so I scheduled a return call (because idea extraction takes time).
But I am happy to announce that today I did my first 3 Idea Extraction Calls ever
OK, they lasted about 10 minutes each, but it's a start and definitely more than I expected!
I only got Level 1 Problems though (meaning very general problems like too little revenue due to small profit margins, difficulties communicating with subcontractors, etc.) but I got my foot in the door and that's all that matters.
So I'll keep cold calling but once I get through to the CEO I'll ask if he's busy and if he is I'll schedule a return call for the following day (or whatever date suits him best).
Later that day I sent out 100 emails using Sam Oven's template with only a few alterations (like instead of calling myself Tech Entrepreneur I said I'm a college student) and we'll see how that goes.
So my plans for tomorrow are to continue cold calling, getting to know more CEOs and their problems and I'm especially looking forward to the return calls that I scheduled with some CEOs today because I hope they'll give me more than 10 minutes of their time
Apart from that I'm pretty happy with the way things are progressing. But to keep things interesting I'll send out another 150 emails tomorrow and call more companies and maybe try calling in a different industry just to see their response. It's too early to settle for one niche anyway, I got time to experiment!
Today I started cold calling early in the morning to test my new scripts. After my cold calls on monday went completely wrong
I decided to try this new script: I introduced myself as a college student who's doing research on his thesis and then I asked the secretary if she happens to know the right person to talk to.
The secretaries then basically gave me carte blanche and replied: "Well who do you wanna speak to?" (if it was a big company) or simply "That would be our CEO, wait I'll put you through."
And I got through...
Every
Single
Time
For someone who had been failing at cold calling that was really liberating. My script contained about 5 different responses to cope with being rejected by the gatekeeper but I didn't have to use any of them.
So I ended up calling 15 businesses and most of the time I ended up talking with the CEO. Many times the CEO was really in a hurry so I scheduled a return call (because idea extraction takes time).
But I am happy to announce that today I did my first 3 Idea Extraction Calls ever
OK, they lasted about 10 minutes each, but it's a start and definitely more than I expected!
I only got Level 1 Problems though (meaning very general problems like too little revenue due to small profit margins, difficulties communicating with subcontractors, etc.) but I got my foot in the door and that's all that matters.
So I'll keep cold calling but once I get through to the CEO I'll ask if he's busy and if he is I'll schedule a return call for the following day (or whatever date suits him best).
Later that day I sent out 100 emails using Sam Oven's template with only a few alterations (like instead of calling myself Tech Entrepreneur I said I'm a college student) and we'll see how that goes.
So my plans for tomorrow are to continue cold calling, getting to know more CEOs and their problems and I'm especially looking forward to the return calls that I scheduled with some CEOs today because I hope they'll give me more than 10 minutes of their time
Apart from that I'm pretty happy with the way things are progressing. But to keep things interesting I'll send out another 150 emails tomorrow and call more companies and maybe try calling in a different industry just to see their response. It's too early to settle for one niche anyway, I got time to experiment!
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- Thread starter
- #29
Day 4:
Today I did more cold calls, this time more confident because I knew I wouldn't get rejected.
I got through to many CEOs but they were all extra busy because it's the last day before Good Friday
so I made appointments for next week. I didn't want to rush in and only get level 1 problems again.
Also a few of the companies I sent emails to replied today.
I got only 6 Emails back (from over 100 recipients on my list) and some owners were really pessimistic
and complaining a lot about high taxes and legal obligations whereas others were euphoric and excited to talk to me
"after Easter" because they see a mutual benefit in talking to me
So next week there will be a lot of idea extraction calls.
Today I did more cold calls, this time more confident because I knew I wouldn't get rejected.
I got through to many CEOs but they were all extra busy because it's the last day before Good Friday
so I made appointments for next week. I didn't want to rush in and only get level 1 problems again.
Also a few of the companies I sent emails to replied today.
I got only 6 Emails back (from over 100 recipients on my list) and some owners were really pessimistic
and complaining a lot about high taxes and legal obligations whereas others were euphoric and excited to talk to me
"after Easter" because they see a mutual benefit in talking to me
So next week there will be a lot of idea extraction calls.
What business or person on earth wants software? NONE.
Does a builder attract future home buyers by selling them a hammer? A builder shows the future homebuyer a completed home or the home plans/photos(prototype) and shows them other happy homeowners enjoying the BENEFITS of their home and shows them how they can enjoy the benefits too.
Nobody wants software. Software is your tool to help them achieve the benefits they want, that they are willing to pay for.
Does a builder attract future home buyers by selling them a hammer? A builder shows the future homebuyer a completed home or the home plans/photos(prototype) and shows them other happy homeowners enjoying the BENEFITS of their home and shows them how they can enjoy the benefits too.
Nobody wants software. Software is your tool to help them achieve the benefits they want, that they are willing to pay for.
Again, please do your due diligence and search other selling/cold call threads. You will find the following as well as other helpful posts and videos.
Good luck!
- Thread starter
- #24
Day 2:
Today I took some time to reflect and plan ahead. I realized that I hadn't really given the process of cold-calling business owners and extracting ideas enough thought. So I decided to learn from people who had done what I'm about to do: (Ex-)Foundation members.
There's one guy in particular who is basically doing the same thing I'm doing (building a SaaS business and sharing his experience in a blog) and he uploaded some great videos and blog posts that answer many questions any newby might have. For anyone interested, the guy's name is Pascal, that's his blog: http://makeawesomeshithappen.com/
So I basically spent many hours listening to information available on how to successfully perform "idea extraction".
I also read the first chapters of "The Ultimate Sales Machine" and watched some training videos on how to improve my cold-calls.
And I changed all my scrips and made new ones, I actually wrote possible questions on sticky notes and created a flowchart for getting past the gatekeeper (based on Chet Holmes' talk) and I'll apply what I learned tomorrow.
On my first day I've sent about 30 emails and called 25 companies. That's obviously not enough.
The foundation member I mentioned above sent out about 1000 emails and I guess if that's what it takes I'll try to do that, too.
So I signed up on MailCheat(Chimp), set everything up and designed a few different campaigns to use tomorrow.
I wrote about 8 different email templates and I'll test each of those in the following days. "All" I have to do now is collect enough email addresses. Luckily every German business is legally obliged to reveal their business email on their homepage so getting enough email addresses won't be a problem (although it might take some time).
I also created a custom database in Filemaker Pro to store all information about the companies I call (like name, email address, name of the person I spoke to, position of the person I spoke to, timestamp, etc.) and also to keep track of which script I used for which company so I can evaluate what works and what doesn't. A much simpler and more lightweight solution than any CRM.
There are so many new tactics I learned today and I'll try to apply all of them!
For example:
I want to use a three step process to get through to the bossman:
Day 1 Call secretary, get owner's name and personal email address.
Day 2 Send an email to the owner (in the style of Sam Ovens or the other 7 templates I built)
Day 3 Do a follow-up call and reference the call to the email I sent
or I want to cold-call the company and pretend that I'm a (very naive) student doing research on {topic related to what this company does} and that I would like to ask a few questions. And I'll ask the secretary if she "knows someone" who'd be qualified to answer my questions.
or I'll simply do the Chet Holmes thing where I first growl along to my favorite Death Metal Songs to get my voice to the right baritone pitch and then simply do the *deep voice* "Hello, is {boss's first name} there?" -"Who's this?" -*even deeper voice* "Tell him this is Chet Holmes calling". ( I must remind myself not to say "Chet Holmes", but my name simply doesn't have the same sound to it ^^)
Haha I'll have a blast for sure
This evening I had an awesome conversation with a fastlaner from Germany who is working on a SaaS business, too. He gave me a lot of helpful advice and even some suggestions for a slightly different but less risky business model and I'd love to try that as well.
Nick, if you're reading this: You made my day!
So although I didn't get a lot of calls done today and I'm still far away from my first really productive "idea extraction interview" I'm really happy that I will get up tomorrow, have a huge breakfast and then pick up the phone and start moving closer to my goal.
Today I took some time to reflect and plan ahead. I realized that I hadn't really given the process of cold-calling business owners and extracting ideas enough thought. So I decided to learn from people who had done what I'm about to do: (Ex-)Foundation members.
There's one guy in particular who is basically doing the same thing I'm doing (building a SaaS business and sharing his experience in a blog) and he uploaded some great videos and blog posts that answer many questions any newby might have. For anyone interested, the guy's name is Pascal, that's his blog: http://makeawesomeshithappen.com/
So I basically spent many hours listening to information available on how to successfully perform "idea extraction".
I also read the first chapters of "The Ultimate Sales Machine" and watched some training videos on how to improve my cold-calls.
And I changed all my scrips and made new ones, I actually wrote possible questions on sticky notes and created a flowchart for getting past the gatekeeper (based on Chet Holmes' talk) and I'll apply what I learned tomorrow.
On my first day I've sent about 30 emails and called 25 companies. That's obviously not enough.
The foundation member I mentioned above sent out about 1000 emails and I guess if that's what it takes I'll try to do that, too.
So I signed up on MailCheat(Chimp), set everything up and designed a few different campaigns to use tomorrow.
I wrote about 8 different email templates and I'll test each of those in the following days. "All" I have to do now is collect enough email addresses. Luckily every German business is legally obliged to reveal their business email on their homepage so getting enough email addresses won't be a problem (although it might take some time).
I also created a custom database in Filemaker Pro to store all information about the companies I call (like name, email address, name of the person I spoke to, position of the person I spoke to, timestamp, etc.) and also to keep track of which script I used for which company so I can evaluate what works and what doesn't. A much simpler and more lightweight solution than any CRM.
There are so many new tactics I learned today and I'll try to apply all of them!
For example:
I want to use a three step process to get through to the bossman:
Day 1 Call secretary, get owner's name and personal email address.
Day 2 Send an email to the owner (in the style of Sam Ovens or the other 7 templates I built)
Day 3 Do a follow-up call and reference the call to the email I sent
or I want to cold-call the company and pretend that I'm a (very naive) student doing research on {topic related to what this company does} and that I would like to ask a few questions. And I'll ask the secretary if she "knows someone" who'd be qualified to answer my questions.
or I'll simply do the Chet Holmes thing where I first growl along to my favorite Death Metal Songs to get my voice to the right baritone pitch and then simply do the *deep voice* "Hello, is {boss's first name} there?" -"Who's this?" -*even deeper voice* "Tell him this is Chet Holmes calling". ( I must remind myself not to say "Chet Holmes", but my name simply doesn't have the same sound to it ^^)
Haha I'll have a blast for sure
This evening I had an awesome conversation with a fastlaner from Germany who is working on a SaaS business, too. He gave me a lot of helpful advice and even some suggestions for a slightly different but less risky business model and I'd love to try that as well.
Nick, if you're reading this: You made my day!
So although I didn't get a lot of calls done today and I'm still far away from my first really productive "idea extraction interview" I'm really happy that I will get up tomorrow, have a huge breakfast and then pick up the phone and start moving closer to my goal.
Congrats on taking action!
I can totally relate to the small german businesses not wanting new software... I used to cold call small to medium-sized businesses here in Germany that had really crappy websites... 95% were not interested in any sort of improvement in their web presence... they said things like: "we get all our clients through trade shows and word of mouth" *click*... I think businesses here are just a little "slower" in adapting to new technologies.
One suggestion would be to not directly say that you want to create a software solution for them in the first email because most people will say (and think) that they don't need any more software... Here is the original email script of the foundation (or I think it is the original) which is a little more ambiguous :
******
Subject line: Strange Question?
Hey.
I’m doing a research project on how to make the *insert industry* easier, faster and more profitable.
I had a strange question you might not get asked often. How is business going for you? Is it up? Down? Sideways? Has your business been affected at all by the recession? If time permits me, I may reach out and call you later this week.
Thank you,
*You Name*
*******
Make sure to be extra polite (use last name) in your emails when in Germany... I sent tons of physical letters to businesses pitching my marketing consultation services and I used the owner's first name... big no-no in Germany. When I did the follow-up calls they were super pissed off
If I were you I'd definitely first tap my existing network for "idea extraction"... so much easier to get access to them and they can probably refer you to other people in the field and also explain the industry to you a little more.
Keep on posting, keep on pushing and don't get discouraged.
- Nick
I can totally relate to the small german businesses not wanting new software... I used to cold call small to medium-sized businesses here in Germany that had really crappy websites... 95% were not interested in any sort of improvement in their web presence... they said things like: "we get all our clients through trade shows and word of mouth" *click*... I think businesses here are just a little "slower" in adapting to new technologies.
One suggestion would be to not directly say that you want to create a software solution for them in the first email because most people will say (and think) that they don't need any more software... Here is the original email script of the foundation (or I think it is the original) which is a little more ambiguous :
******
Subject line: Strange Question?
Hey.
I’m doing a research project on how to make the *insert industry* easier, faster and more profitable.
I had a strange question you might not get asked often. How is business going for you? Is it up? Down? Sideways? Has your business been affected at all by the recession? If time permits me, I may reach out and call you later this week.
Thank you,
*You Name*
*******
Make sure to be extra polite (use last name) in your emails when in Germany... I sent tons of physical letters to businesses pitching my marketing consultation services and I used the owner's first name... big no-no in Germany. When I did the follow-up calls they were super pissed off
If I were you I'd definitely first tap my existing network for "idea extraction"... so much easier to get access to them and they can probably refer you to other people in the field and also explain the industry to you a little more.
Keep on posting, keep on pushing and don't get discouraged.
- Nick
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- Thread starter
- #53
Hey Greg, thanks for your advice!
Your timing couldn't have been better
4 Days ago I sent out very nice emails (I discussed the email with quite a few people to get it right) in which I introduced myself as a Tech Entrepreneur who's taking on their industry's problems and I even made sure to convey many benefits for them and repeated several times that I don't want to sell anything, it's just about a short conversation to find out more about their problems.
--> I didn't hear back from a single recipient.
I just called four companies that I didn't hear back from and this time I didn't introduce myself as a college student (like I used to in the past) but as a Software Entrepreneur who's doing research on their industry's problems in order to solve those problems and make their work easier and more fun.
They didn't even hear the part about me solving problems, their mind got stuck at "Software" and from there they either told me that the Software they're using is already great and they don't need anything else or that they were suddenly really busy.
Looking back this approach was kind of stupid. It's like telling someone "Don't think about the blue elephant!"
Well, what do you see?
Exactly.
In my most successful IE calls I didn't mention software once.
I said: "I'm a college student and I am doing a research paper on the problems in {his industry} and my task is to find as many problems as possible and develop a realistic solution for some of them. Do you have a minute to talk about this?
And it worked really well, they let their guard down because I didn't seem like I'm selling anything and a phone call seemed beneficial to them because I said I would try to find solutions - and most CEOs are not averse to getting their problems solved (for free).
Now I basically said the exact same thing here as in my three phone calls today:
-I want to hear about your problems, I'm here for you, I'll listen
-I will try to solve them for free
-You are not obliged to do or pay anything
(man my mouth is watering while reading this, it's an offer nobody can refuse ^^)
The only thing that ruined it was the harmless word "Software" because it seems to initiate a lot of negative thinking and put limitations on creativity because not many CEOs actually know how far software can go.
Fact is the best approach is to not mention software at all (at least until I find a good problem).
People can be more open and talk freely about problems because they are not "forced" to limit themselves by thinking about their EDP-system or all the other things that give them headaches.
So I guess we're on the same page!?
- Thread starter
- #64
Day 16:
After cold calling several companies I had two long IE calls today.
Both were really positive and interesting and there was no shortage of problems to attack ^^ It was actually hard to pick just one.
I especially liked how one CEO was really patient with me and took her time to explain a specific problem properly and in great detail.
It reminded me of that IE call Dane had with this Pool Cleaning Company Owner:
I could let her talk and would just occasionally interject "how does that work exactly" or "what happens then" or even "that sounds painful" and it would keep the conversation going. Took some valuable information about the industry out of that call.
I concentrated on one problem (the most painful one) and asked if a software solution would be helpful and she said "Hell yeah, we'd need that. It could save us a lot of time."
My problem is:
Out of all the IE interviews I conducted I have yet to find two companies with similar top problems.
Every CEO seems to have different problems and they all put different emphasis on their problems.
It's because some problems only occur in companies with >100 employees and others mostly occur in small businesses and it's not
always easy to distinguish those two types as all companies try to look big on the internet ^^
Until now I was getting more and more familiar with the industry.
In my future calls I'll ask CEO's directly if the painful problems I've found so far are also an issue in their company.
Only if those problems don't occur in that company I'll keep asking for different problems.
Tomorrow I'll have an interview with a CEO who wanted to talk about opportunities and also I'll have a job interview.
After cold calling several companies I had two long IE calls today.
Both were really positive and interesting and there was no shortage of problems to attack ^^ It was actually hard to pick just one.
I especially liked how one CEO was really patient with me and took her time to explain a specific problem properly and in great detail.
It reminded me of that IE call Dane had with this Pool Cleaning Company Owner:
I could let her talk and would just occasionally interject "how does that work exactly" or "what happens then" or even "that sounds painful" and it would keep the conversation going. Took some valuable information about the industry out of that call.
I concentrated on one problem (the most painful one) and asked if a software solution would be helpful and she said "Hell yeah, we'd need that. It could save us a lot of time."
My problem is:
Out of all the IE interviews I conducted I have yet to find two companies with similar top problems.
Every CEO seems to have different problems and they all put different emphasis on their problems.
It's because some problems only occur in companies with >100 employees and others mostly occur in small businesses and it's not
always easy to distinguish those two types as all companies try to look big on the internet ^^
Until now I was getting more and more familiar with the industry.
In my future calls I'll ask CEO's directly if the painful problems I've found so far are also an issue in their company.
Only if those problems don't occur in that company I'll keep asking for different problems.
Tomorrow I'll have an interview with a CEO who wanted to talk about opportunities and also I'll have a job interview.
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- Thread starter
- #65
Day 17:
Had 3 good IE calls today. Turned out that the companies that best fit my criteria (>100 employees, several millions in revenue) were the ones most willing to talk to a student doing research. Win Win - for me ;-)
I heard about many different new problems today but most importantly I found out that 3 CEO's I've interviewed so far are having the same problem.
I have no concrete idea how to solve that problem with software but at least I found an unsolved painful problem that occurs more than once.
It's not a problem that is costing them a lot of money (like lost revenue) but it does take up a lot of time. It's a major nuisance.
Of course I'm still far away from creating mockups and pre-selling my solution but it was a huge step in the right direction.
In the afternoon I phoned a CEO who replied to my message on XING and he said we should grab lunch some time and talk about what Software I could develop for their company. Sounds promising and it would be my first in-person meeting. Really excited about this.
It's the first CEO who will get to know me as a "developer" instead of just a student.
Later that day I met up with a freelance developer who's looking for a colleague.
I'm not a programmer myself, a beginner at best, but somehow I felt the need to apply.
During our conversation he said that he doesn't need a Web Designer, not even a Javascript Programmer (those are my only two skills).
He's mainly developing in RoR so he suggested I should learn Rails and then in 1 month come work for him as a freelancer.
First I wasn't too sure but he also offered his assistance and guidance - he basically said he'd be my mentor.
Since I want to do SaaS for a living and web development is what I'm really excited about I consented.
No idea how hard it's gonna be to learn a new language + a new framework - but it's something that just feels right at the moment.
If I want to succeed in this industry I need to learn from the best and this guy has 15+ years experience and I'm sure I can learn a lot.
Also knowing how to code and going to meet-ups and hackathons will definitely help me find competent programmers for future projects. Or even for my current project.
Had 3 good IE calls today. Turned out that the companies that best fit my criteria (>100 employees, several millions in revenue) were the ones most willing to talk to a student doing research. Win Win - for me ;-)
I heard about many different new problems today but most importantly I found out that 3 CEO's I've interviewed so far are having the same problem.
I have no concrete idea how to solve that problem with software but at least I found an unsolved painful problem that occurs more than once.
It's not a problem that is costing them a lot of money (like lost revenue) but it does take up a lot of time. It's a major nuisance.
Of course I'm still far away from creating mockups and pre-selling my solution but it was a huge step in the right direction.
In the afternoon I phoned a CEO who replied to my message on XING and he said we should grab lunch some time and talk about what Software I could develop for their company. Sounds promising and it would be my first in-person meeting. Really excited about this.
It's the first CEO who will get to know me as a "developer" instead of just a student.
Later that day I met up with a freelance developer who's looking for a colleague.
I'm not a programmer myself, a beginner at best, but somehow I felt the need to apply.
During our conversation he said that he doesn't need a Web Designer, not even a Javascript Programmer (those are my only two skills).
He's mainly developing in RoR so he suggested I should learn Rails and then in 1 month come work for him as a freelancer.
First I wasn't too sure but he also offered his assistance and guidance - he basically said he'd be my mentor.
Since I want to do SaaS for a living and web development is what I'm really excited about I consented.
No idea how hard it's gonna be to learn a new language + a new framework - but it's something that just feels right at the moment.
If I want to succeed in this industry I need to learn from the best and this guy has 15+ years experience and I'm sure I can learn a lot.
Also knowing how to code and going to meet-ups and hackathons will definitely help me find competent programmers for future projects. Or even for my current project.
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- Thread starter
- #32
Thanks for your support! One sentence that really opened my eyes was when Sam Ovens said that "young entrepreneurs would do anything to avoid talking to customers".
I made that mistake in the past and thought I needed to register a LLC, print business cards and have an awesome company website to even get started....
Yeah, you definitely gotta read "The Lean Start Up". If you want a quick overview, check out this visual summary that I found helpful:
http://de.slideshare.net/KUalum/the...4c79-ad4d-6d21d8097182&v=qf1&b=&from_search=1
And no, I'm not a member of The Foundation. Dane did so many interviews online, almost all of them are free, and even for the ones on Mixergy that require you to become a premium member you can still read the transcript ^^
Seriously, I am not even finished with all the free content for now. There are so many interviews with Dane Maxwell, Andy Drish, Sam Ovens, Carl Mattiola, then there are the Starting From Nothing Podcast, Youtube Videos by Dane or even Foundation members, personal blogs, etc.
It's definitely enough to get you started and to get you going for a few months
Good luck with your projects!!!
- Thread starter
- #34
Day 5:
Good Friday. No work today - for my future customers
Since I couldn't phone anyone today I spent my time reading Sales books, watching my god on youtube and reading Josh Isaak's AMA :
http://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneu..._and_started_a_successful_saas_business_with/
Lots of helpful insights there and even when I reviewed videos I watched weeks ago I saw them through different eyes.
Having this Friday off gave me time to reflect and I noticed a lot of limiting that kept me paralyzed. Like feeling overwhelmed by everything that I'll have to do in order to succeed. Being intimidated by my competition. Thinking about how I won't even be able to find an unsolved problem (let alone: solve it)!
Luckily I was able to overcome those limiting believes in a surprisingly short amount of time, simply by becoming aware of those believes and going through the 4 questions (http://thework.com/thework-4questions.php).
I also contacted the programmer I want to work with for the first time and scheduled a meeting on hangouts for next week. I know the deal was to put this off until I had clearly defined a problem (and already made a pre-sale) but I had little to do anyway and I need to find out if what I'm planning to do can be achieved with the new framework I want to use and if he will be available full time etc.
To finish this day with the feeling of accomplishment I sent out 75 emails to a completely new industry (construction businesses).
I have a personal preference for those businesses because I was working in a construction job myself for a few months and I'd love to help those businesses succeed.
Good Friday. No work today - for my future customers
Since I couldn't phone anyone today I spent my time reading Sales books, watching my god on youtube and reading Josh Isaak's AMA :
http://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneu..._and_started_a_successful_saas_business_with/
Lots of helpful insights there and even when I reviewed videos I watched weeks ago I saw them through different eyes.
Having this Friday off gave me time to reflect and I noticed a lot of limiting that kept me paralyzed. Like feeling overwhelmed by everything that I'll have to do in order to succeed. Being intimidated by my competition. Thinking about how I won't even be able to find an unsolved problem (let alone: solve it)!
Luckily I was able to overcome those limiting believes in a surprisingly short amount of time, simply by becoming aware of those believes and going through the 4 questions (http://thework.com/thework-4questions.php).
I also contacted the programmer I want to work with for the first time and scheduled a meeting on hangouts for next week. I know the deal was to put this off until I had clearly defined a problem (and already made a pre-sale) but I had little to do anyway and I need to find out if what I'm planning to do can be achieved with the new framework I want to use and if he will be available full time etc.
To finish this day with the feeling of accomplishment I sent out 75 emails to a completely new industry (construction businesses).
I have a personal preference for those businesses because I was working in a construction job myself for a few months and I'd love to help those businesses succeed.
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- #37
Day 6:
I am sure that SaaS and the process outlined by Dane Maxwell are the way to go for me.
Once I find a pain and get pre-sales there's basically no way I can fail - or at least I can dramatically reduce my risk of failing.
Now today I realized that there's one more part that I haven't given enough thought.
Seeing how another idol of mine failed with his SaaS product made me realize that finding a lucrative industry with an unsolved problem that is costing much time and/or money is not enough.
There's another element that is equally important and that is to have passion related to that industry.
The fact that I chose cleaning companies for a start was pure coincidence. It could've been any other industry for all I care.
I was trying to make my new business not so much about me but all about my customers. That is, i guess, not the perfect approach.
Sure I will develop a solution with a specific customer and his pain in mind but the industry I work for should be one I genuinely like.
Dane said in one of his interviews that he didn't merely get new customers, he got new friends. And that is what I want for my business, too. A customer that will trust me so much that I can come over for an actual conversation, not on the phone, but in his office or in a pub or wherever. I don't plan to be a big faceless software company - I want to stay small & lean. And I should look at this as an advantage: It will be my chance to be more personal and direct.
It's my choice. Now's the time to set the course.
I have no problem working 12 hours a day on my projects like a machine , I've proven that in the past.
But that is no good if I'm moving in a totally wrong direction.
So in the following days I will choose an industry that excites me.
Because I understand Parkinson's law and I commit to taking massive action anyway I will set myself a deadline:
I will find my niche and a problem to solve by may 12 - the day I'll turn 22.
I am sure that SaaS and the process outlined by Dane Maxwell are the way to go for me.
Once I find a pain and get pre-sales there's basically no way I can fail - or at least I can dramatically reduce my risk of failing.
Now today I realized that there's one more part that I haven't given enough thought.
Seeing how another idol of mine failed with his SaaS product made me realize that finding a lucrative industry with an unsolved problem that is costing much time and/or money is not enough.
There's another element that is equally important and that is to have passion related to that industry.
The fact that I chose cleaning companies for a start was pure coincidence. It could've been any other industry for all I care.
I was trying to make my new business not so much about me but all about my customers. That is, i guess, not the perfect approach.
Sure I will develop a solution with a specific customer and his pain in mind but the industry I work for should be one I genuinely like.
Dane said in one of his interviews that he didn't merely get new customers, he got new friends. And that is what I want for my business, too. A customer that will trust me so much that I can come over for an actual conversation, not on the phone, but in his office or in a pub or wherever. I don't plan to be a big faceless software company - I want to stay small & lean. And I should look at this as an advantage: It will be my chance to be more personal and direct.
It's my choice. Now's the time to set the course.
I have no problem working 12 hours a day on my projects like a machine , I've proven that in the past.
But that is no good if I'm moving in a totally wrong direction.
So in the following days I will choose an industry that excites me.
Because I understand Parkinson's law and I commit to taking massive action anyway I will set myself a deadline:
I will find my niche and a problem to solve by may 12 - the day I'll turn 22.
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My only recommendation is to keep pushing on calling more folks. My regret when I went after SaaS was that when I got my first tastes of success and started identifying pain points, I kinda stopped calling folks and just focused on the few companies that I got a positive response from. What I should have done was got 10+ additional companies interested, because as the project moved along my initial companies lost interest, and I lost momentum.
Great work!
Great work!
- Thread starter
- #40
Day 7:
First week is over. Learned much but didn't accomplish as much as I hoped I would.
Sadly tomorrow is a public holiday so I can't do my "highest leverage activity" (i.e. cold calling companies / talking to CEOs).
Starting tomorrow I will try everything it takes to get real in person interviews with the CEOs in my new niche: Construction businesses.
I got way out of my comfort zone when I made all those cold calls last week but to be honest: In the end it wasn't even challenging anymore. I had my script, it worked like a charm. But new problems arose:
Once I had the CEO on the phone his time was very limited and I don't think I could actually properly convey what I'm doing and what's in it for him. I couldn't get to the more delicate problems. There was no trust, no relationship at all. I was stuck.
As a matter of fact I'm starting to wonder: What good are cold calling and idea extraction on the phone anyway?
I think I have the whole process backwards: I thought that in order to find a need I would have to
1. Email about a thousand companies and schedule a phone call (expect 10% response rate)
1. call about 100 companies and talk about their problems (idea extraction)
2. narrow it down to a specific problem that many of those companies share
3. try to get about 10 companies of those to become my first Beta-users
4. get pre-sales
5. Scale
But a more realistic (and more promising) approach would be:
1. Talk with about 10 business owners in person, establish trust, find their level-4 problems (idea extraction)
2. call about 100 other companies and ask if they share this specific level-4 pain I just found (idea validation)
3. get pre-sales from my first 10 companies
4. Scale
For sure Dane used the latter approach when creating his products for real estate companies.
He didn't just call business owners, he found the pain by having real face-to-face conversations, by visiting their offices.
While I still believe idea extraction can work over the phone (if I was as experienced as Dane),
I could kill two birds with one stone if I did idea extraction only with those CEOs I can meet in person.
Get ideas and establish trust at the same time, thus building a foundation for future pre-sales would be the best way to go.
Time will tell.
First week is over. Learned much but didn't accomplish as much as I hoped I would.
Sadly tomorrow is a public holiday so I can't do my "highest leverage activity" (i.e. cold calling companies / talking to CEOs).
Starting tomorrow I will try everything it takes to get real in person interviews with the CEOs in my new niche: Construction businesses.
I got way out of my comfort zone when I made all those cold calls last week but to be honest: In the end it wasn't even challenging anymore. I had my script, it worked like a charm. But new problems arose:
Once I had the CEO on the phone his time was very limited and I don't think I could actually properly convey what I'm doing and what's in it for him. I couldn't get to the more delicate problems. There was no trust, no relationship at all. I was stuck.
As a matter of fact I'm starting to wonder: What good are cold calling and idea extraction on the phone anyway?
I think I have the whole process backwards: I thought that in order to find a need I would have to
1. Email about a thousand companies and schedule a phone call (expect 10% response rate)
1. call about 100 companies and talk about their problems (idea extraction)
2. narrow it down to a specific problem that many of those companies share
3. try to get about 10 companies of those to become my first Beta-users
4. get pre-sales
5. Scale
But a more realistic (and more promising) approach would be:
1. Talk with about 10 business owners in person, establish trust, find their level-4 problems (idea extraction)
2. call about 100 other companies and ask if they share this specific level-4 pain I just found (idea validation)
3. get pre-sales from my first 10 companies
4. Scale
For sure Dane used the latter approach when creating his products for real estate companies.
He didn't just call business owners, he found the pain by having real face-to-face conversations, by visiting their offices.
While I still believe idea extraction can work over the phone (if I was as experienced as Dane),
I could kill two birds with one stone if I did idea extraction only with those CEOs I can meet in person.
Get ideas and establish trust at the same time, thus building a foundation for future pre-sales would be the best way to go.
Time will tell.
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I am also in the process of idea extraction calls in The Netherlands and have come across the same issues you are facing. What works very well for me to get the owners/CEO's talking is to ask an open question after your short intro, like: "So basically that's why I'm reaching out, what is your biggest challenge in managing your business?"
They usually go silent and start thinking. I also keep silent until they start talking. This works for me in about 80% of the calls. If you ask them if they have a few minutes it's too easy for them to reply they are busy. Once you get them talking, they don't even notice the time anymore.
I haven't found an idea yet because I'm also having difficulties getting to level 4 problems. So I am currently working on improving those skills.
Good luck!
I think Dane talks about a 3-3 rule, where 3 companies have to independently indicate that they have a particular pain point, then you go pitch to other companies until you find 3 additional companies that are willing to pay for it (as indicated via presales). You would pitch the problem/solution directly, as opposed to idea extraction to find the additional three.
- Thread starter
- #72
The point of pre sales is to verify if there's demand. I want potential customers to put their money where their mouth is.
Getting pre sales may be hard but it's never a waste of time.
Besides, customers are not paying for development, they are basically paying for the first >3 months of use. Most SaaS companies charge their fees annually so paying for 3 months in advance shouldn't be too much to ask.
Personally I wouldn't consider the demand 'proven' if companies are paying for similar products - only if they consent to using my product and at the same time take their money and put it in my hands
No seriously, I don't have enough time or money to fail this time so I better make sure there is demand.
And even for what you're trying to do it would be awesome if you could get pre sales. Doesn't need to be much, just a symbolic amount. In russia they say "a small rubel is worth more than a big 'thank you' " I guess that is valid even outside of russia
Last edited:
- Thread starter
- #83
Day 22:
It's been 3 weeks already, time really flies
Time for some reflection.
I really concentrated on getting through to the CEO's and having long IE interviews with them. I was unexperienced and shy and my main goal was to actually talk with as many CEO's as possible. I succeeded.
Out of the ~100 cold calls I made, 14 of them led to IE interviews of >45 min. each.
But in order to get past the gatekeepers and get the CEO's to open up about their problems to a complete stranger I introduced myself as a college student and not as a software entrepreneur. This enabled me to have a >45min. conversation right after cold-calling some company. But still I'm not happy with the results.
I wasted precious time talking to companies that
-weren't even profitable or that
-were too small or
-didn't even use software (except for bookkeeping)
Also I basically stopped sending out emails because the cold calls were really successful.
So now I'm stuck with a bunch of different problems, not sure which one to solve (if at all) and I don't even know if companies would actually pay for a service like that. Plus I'm only known as a student - so revealing that I'm also a software entrepreneur might come as a shock/unpleasant surprise.
I got 8 days left until my (self-imposed) deadline and I really want to find an expensive problem to base my SaaS service on.
Dane said that he needed 6 months to find and validate his idea for Paperless Pipeline.
(although he had a background in RE and a relative working there, too)
I heard he found the problem that he based his software on at the end of those 6 months by questioning ONE very successful CEO (who then gave him the idea for Paperless Pipeline)
The way I see it, I should go for quality (over quantity) of IE calls.
I guess having a 2 hour in-person conversation with a "friend" who's working in a managing position in some company easily beats having 20+ 30min. phone calls with random CEO's. It just takes so much time to get through to someone and establish a level of trust to get him to reveal level 4 problems.
So during the next days I will send out MANY personal messages on XING, try other industries and see where people are most eager to get back to me as a developer. I will try to get them to meet in person or at least reserve an hours for a conversation.
I won't introduce myself as a college student anymore but only as a software entrepreneur. I'm sure I will get more rejections this way but the people who do get back to me are gonna be on the same page.
So much to do, so little time....
The good thing is I got used to doing cold calls, I improved my interviewing technique and I grew much more confident. So I consider the past few weeks "practice" for the more decisive conversations that I am going to conduct in the next weeks.
Update: (later that evening)
Sent out 60 messages on Xing. 4 CEO's already accepted me as a contact within minutes. Let's see how many of those 60 people will get back to me within one week!
I also created my first commit with Git and then deployed a small To-Do App I built in Rails to Heroku. Great success!
It's been 3 weeks already, time really flies
Time for some reflection.
I really concentrated on getting through to the CEO's and having long IE interviews with them. I was unexperienced and shy and my main goal was to actually talk with as many CEO's as possible. I succeeded.
Out of the ~100 cold calls I made, 14 of them led to IE interviews of >45 min. each.
But in order to get past the gatekeepers and get the CEO's to open up about their problems to a complete stranger I introduced myself as a college student and not as a software entrepreneur. This enabled me to have a >45min. conversation right after cold-calling some company. But still I'm not happy with the results.
I wasted precious time talking to companies that
-weren't even profitable or that
-were too small or
-didn't even use software (except for bookkeeping)
Also I basically stopped sending out emails because the cold calls were really successful.
So now I'm stuck with a bunch of different problems, not sure which one to solve (if at all) and I don't even know if companies would actually pay for a service like that. Plus I'm only known as a student - so revealing that I'm also a software entrepreneur might come as a shock/unpleasant surprise.
I got 8 days left until my (self-imposed) deadline and I really want to find an expensive problem to base my SaaS service on.
Dane said that he needed 6 months to find and validate his idea for Paperless Pipeline.
(although he had a background in RE and a relative working there, too)
I heard he found the problem that he based his software on at the end of those 6 months by questioning ONE very successful CEO (who then gave him the idea for Paperless Pipeline)
The way I see it, I should go for quality (over quantity) of IE calls.
I guess having a 2 hour in-person conversation with a "friend" who's working in a managing position in some company easily beats having 20+ 30min. phone calls with random CEO's. It just takes so much time to get through to someone and establish a level of trust to get him to reveal level 4 problems.
So during the next days I will send out MANY personal messages on XING, try other industries and see where people are most eager to get back to me as a developer. I will try to get them to meet in person or at least reserve an hours for a conversation.
I won't introduce myself as a college student anymore but only as a software entrepreneur. I'm sure I will get more rejections this way but the people who do get back to me are gonna be on the same page.
So much to do, so little time....
The good thing is I got used to doing cold calls, I improved my interviewing technique and I grew much more confident. So I consider the past few weeks "practice" for the more decisive conversations that I am going to conduct in the next weeks.
Update: (later that evening)
Sent out 60 messages on Xing. 4 CEO's already accepted me as a contact within minutes. Let's see how many of those 60 people will get back to me within one week!
I also created my first commit with Git and then deployed a small To-Do App I built in Rails to Heroku. Great success!
Last edited:
- Thread starter
- #152
Yeah definitely, here's my update:
I stopped pursuing the Dane Maxwell path although I found many problems to solve along the way.
I solved one of those problems myself (no SaaS, just sold the finished product). It took me about 3 days to program and put $2k in my bank account. That was definitely the most money I ever earned in such a short time.
One business owner who I met twice even wanted me to market a finished product that he had been working on in his free time but after long consideration I declined
It simply wasn't what I wanted. My heart wasn't in it.
You see, I just turned 22 and until recently I couldn't name any skill that I'm good at. Good enough to charge money for.
Now Dane's philosophy is that you don't actually have to have technical skills, you just need to ask the right questions, create a mockup and let the pros take over. This is not who I am.
I started programming because it was something I really wanted to learn and also because I believe that not understanding how web applications work and (more importantly) what they can do is really negligent considering the time in which we're living. Luckily I found a mentor for RoR and I'm currently working for that mentor.
I also just finished my MVP for the learning platform I want to create and this is something I'm really really excited about, it's simply something that resonated with me.
My last company was a learning application for law students and it didn't take off because I neglected many vital aspects of that business and barely did any market research.
I learned a lot from that experience and I'll do it better this time.
In September I'll move to Berlin to work on my Start-Up and maybe join an incubator and also to find a third co-founder for my project.
I stopped pursuing the Dane Maxwell path although I found many problems to solve along the way.
I solved one of those problems myself (no SaaS, just sold the finished product). It took me about 3 days to program and put $2k in my bank account. That was definitely the most money I ever earned in such a short time.
One business owner who I met twice even wanted me to market a finished product that he had been working on in his free time but after long consideration I declined
It simply wasn't what I wanted. My heart wasn't in it.You see, I just turned 22 and until recently I couldn't name any skill that I'm good at. Good enough to charge money for.
Now Dane's philosophy is that you don't actually have to have technical skills, you just need to ask the right questions, create a mockup and let the pros take over. This is not who I am.
I started programming because it was something I really wanted to learn and also because I believe that not understanding how web applications work and (more importantly) what they can do is really negligent considering the time in which we're living. Luckily I found a mentor for RoR and I'm currently working for that mentor.
I also just finished my MVP for the learning platform I want to create and this is something I'm really really excited about, it's simply something that resonated with me.
My last company was a learning application for law students and it didn't take off because I neglected many vital aspects of that business and barely did any market research.
I learned a lot from that experience and I'll do it better this time.
In September I'll move to Berlin to work on my Start-Up and maybe join an incubator and also to find a third co-founder for my project.
Hello everyone,
I read "The 4 Hour Work Week", "The Millionaire Fastlane ", "The Lean Startup" and "Get Real (37Signals)" and those books completely changed my life - but it wasn't until I discovered Dane Maxwell that I was actually ready to take action. I devoured all his free content online and now I finally have the courage to start my own software company.
I'm 21 and so far I've dropped out of law school and business school and started two businesses: A lasertag arena and an e-learning platform for German law students. I failed in a spectacular fashion, but I also learned a lot.
I'm not going back to college and I'm sure as hell not getting a full-time job that will distract me from living my dream: Becoming a location independent entrepreneur with passive income.
I want to share with you what I'm doing everyday to build my business - to hold myself accountable and maybe even inspire you!
My long-term goal is to build a web app that generates monthly recurring revenue of at least 100€/customer and get enough customers to fund my lifestyle.
My goals for the next three months are:
1. Talk to A LOT of business owners in order to find a painful unsolved problem
2. Create clickable mockups of a web app that solves those problems
3. Get pre-sales from at least 4 companies (based on those mockups)
(if I don't get 4 companies to pay me upfront I'll ditch that industry and look for a different one)
4. Hire a developer and have a MVP developed in under a month
5. Get feedback from my first ~4 customers, adjust the app to my customer's needs, invest a good part of my profit in further development to make my web app super awesome, get testimonials and then
6. SCALE SCALE SCALE SCALE
7. Profit ?
I read "The 4 Hour Work Week", "The Millionaire Fastlane ", "The Lean Startup" and "Get Real (37Signals)" and those books completely changed my life - but it wasn't until I discovered Dane Maxwell that I was actually ready to take action. I devoured all his free content online and now I finally have the courage to start my own software company.
I'm 21 and so far I've dropped out of law school and business school and started two businesses: A lasertag arena and an e-learning platform for German law students. I failed in a spectacular fashion, but I also learned a lot.
I'm not going back to college and I'm sure as hell not getting a full-time job that will distract me from living my dream: Becoming a location independent entrepreneur with passive income.
I want to share with you what I'm doing everyday to build my business - to hold myself accountable and maybe even inspire you!
My long-term goal is to build a web app that generates monthly recurring revenue of at least 100€/customer and get enough customers to fund my lifestyle.
My goals for the next three months are:
1. Talk to A LOT of business owners in order to find a painful unsolved problem
2. Create clickable mockups of a web app that solves those problems
3. Get pre-sales from at least 4 companies (based on those mockups)
(if I don't get 4 companies to pay me upfront I'll ditch that industry and look for a different one)
4. Hire a developer and have a MVP developed in under a month
5. Get feedback from my first ~4 customers, adjust the app to my customer's needs, invest a good part of my profit in further development to make my web app super awesome, get testimonials and then
6. SCALE SCALE SCALE SCALE
7. Profit ?
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IceCreamKid
With Great Power Comes Great Electricity Bill
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
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Dane helped me to build my first software solution for dentists. I ended up being unable to scale it due to licensing issues, but that was completely my fault for not doing enough due diligence. I tend to just jump in without enough due diligence.
He's a good guy and a damn good entrepreneur...gets pretty emotional at times though. Really though, at the core he just wants to help people.
IceCreamKid
With Great Power Comes Great Electricity Bill
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
Ah yes I should've caught on to that, especially after the who is zen******* thread.
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